Report: Hundreds Of Xbox Makers At Foxconn Plant Threatened Suicide

Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Foxconn has factories just about everywhere in the world, and they make stuff for just about every gadget company that you can think of. This makes any news coming out of the company, from 2010’s suicide cluster to last year’s explosion, fascinating to us. But it’s hard to look at your Xbox quite the same way after learning that hundreds of Foxconn workers reportedly took to the roof and threatened suicide over severance payments.

Accounts differ between anti-government news sources and Foxconn’s own press releases, but talks with the mayor of Wuhan and promise of either more pay or the promised severance payments got employees down off the roof.

I’m almost beginning to feel as if products that don’t use Foxconn components should indicate so on the packaging – like cage-free eggs – so that people who are willing to pay a little more for a more humane product have the option.

Silly. They are bigger so they get the press, but don’t think for a second the others don’t have the same issues.

The only way you can avoid this is to not buy electronics. From anyone. Unless Curtis Mathis is still making TVs in the US.

That said, many argue these “sweatshop-like” conditions are actually a step up from what the workers would have otherwise. The movement is in the right direction, so as bad as they have things compared to us, they are exponentially better than those who don’t even have employment options.

But it doesn’t need to be this way, there is no law saying that you should treat workers as badly as possible and pay them subsistence wages or less. The organization is not failing because of high wages, the owners just want to further pad their pockets. Ironically it seems the higher the profit margin the more likely this is to occur, especially by those who consider workers to be worth less then garbage rather then as a profit generator.

Yeah, the problem is there would be basically nothing left to buy in the electronics world. The ultimate way to simplify your life I suppose.

The other problem is assuming that Foxconn is the only one who has these problems of poorly paid and mistreated workers. What does it help to simply shift money to other companies that also abuse workers but we just don’t hear about it as much because they are smaller entities?

The problem is that many of the other suppliers are worse. By Chinese standards, Foxconn is relatively good.

The manufacturing companies based inside Shenzhen proper are government approved and “generally” adhere to the Chinese labor laws, as bad as they are. There’s a much larger number of “illegal” companies outside of Shenzhen, that hire illegal migrant workers, and the working conditions there are much worse. You probably buy more stuff that’s made in those factories than you do from the legal ones. Everything from buttons to zippers (I couldn’t think of anything starting with A).

Average wage doubling – I have no reason to believe you, but I have no reason not to. I’ll give you this one

Average wage dropping 16%? Is this an nominal or inflation-adjusted? I’d call you out for nominal, would like to see a citation for inflation adjusted, along with numbers calculating cost of living. Nevertheless, you are suggesting that productivity has been sustained or increased in the period since 1973 – to what would you attribute this as it runs counter to your final statement.

Major inventions in the period between 1950 and 1980? I’d like to see evidence of such, along with the union membership status of each of those inventors (I will give credit for actual inventors if management was the listed inventor). Additionally, what percentage of those inventions were created without a significant influx of capital? Also, what was the ratio of capital invested in productive inventions to the total capital invested in all inventions (both successful and failures, including designs and prototypes that never advanced)?

I do agree with your final point about prosperity and doubt anybody would agree with you.

There is a not-so-fine line between the benefits a union gives workers and the havoc it wrecks on a country’s economy.

The UAW is a classic example. Although they initially were a positive factor in eliminating inhumane and unsafe working conditions at Ford and other American automakers, their greed resulted in a 40-year downslide of the US automotive industry culminating with the bankruptcy of GM and Chrysler.

For decades, the “it’s not my job” union mentality resulted in almost nonexistant quality control on the assembly lines. By the time the Asian philosophy of any worker having the power to stop the assembly line to correct a defect was adopted by the unions, the substandard quality reputation of American auto manufacturers was firmly etched in consumers’ brains.

There is also an issue of what truly constitutes a “fair” wage. While I agree auto workers should receive a “living” wage, the average pay of UAW workers in the past was well beyond “fair”. A high-school grad whose sole job is turning a wrench does not deserve the same (or higher) pay as a teacher or RN who spent years in college (usually at their own expense) learning their trade. On top of this, the UAW went overboard on paying almost every dime of members’ health care costs, creating a financial Ponzi scheme.

By the time the Asian philosophy of any worker having the power to stop the assembly line to correct a defect was adopted by the unions

By the unions? It wasn’t the union who would fire you if you stopped the line.

When GM started trying to implement that model throughout the company, it was plant managers who didn’t like it and refused to implement it. Apparently there were a few cases where the union didn’t like it either, but management had more to do with the failure of that model.

I’m not trying to say the UAW never screwed things up, but I really don’t think you can blame them for this one.

A big part of that was a) Lack of foreign competition and b) The USA was the industrial supplier to the post-war world. It could also be argued that the high wages also lead to industries not modernizing their plants or processes and that’s why they were completely decimated in the 70’s & 80’s. The decline of the 70’s likely also would have happened earlier if it weren’t for the Vietnam War propping up heavy industry. Even before the 70’s, industry was already leaving the northeast and midwest and opening up shop in non-union plants in the south.

My Dad worked at the Homestead Works and made enough to support his family, provide us with health care, a house, and a decent quality of life in Pittsburgh. Unions or no unions, I doubt we’ll ever see the return to prosperity which we saw in that era. A return to union labor, with high wages, pensions, and great health care isn’t going to make us any more competitive against a 3rd world worker working for pennies, in unsafe conditions, in factories with no pollution controls.

And after 1973, companies went out of business when unions bullied them.

Case in point, the factory my dad worked in. The union got line jobs up to $40 an hour in 2000. They’d been running with these ridiculous wages since the 50’s. At the time there was no issue with car manufacturing in Canada. Yet they went bust. The union had a strike for weeks. Then the company folded. They released the data shortly after. The company had been in the red for over two decades and their number one cost was wages.

Many of those workers are now working at a nearby seating manufacturer (unionized) making $18-20 an hour in 2011.

If the union had permitted the company to pay $25 an hour in 2000, based on their books, they’d have been in the black and no employees would have been let go.

You tell me how the union benefited those workers. My dad was one of them. The union has even been so “generous” that for retired employees such as my dad who were guaranteed lifetime health benefits… …well… ooops! No more money in that either. He got a payout of the remaining cash. There’s questions as to whether the pension fund is running out as well, now.

So is this a different group then in the story just a couple days ago? The numbers involved are different, and this says MS instead of Apple but I’m curious if this is the same group and/or story or if all Foxconn workers are starting their negotiations on the roofs of their plants?